


Batman R.I.P.

by sadoeuphemist



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 20:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13349250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadoeuphemist/pseuds/sadoeuphemist
Summary: A dead body in an alleyway. Nothing new. Nothing you can't handle.





	Batman R.I.P.

"You sure it's him?" Gordon said. "Wayne's had problems with impersonators in the past." 

"Well, uh." The patrolman scratched the back of his head. "Sure looks like him, at least. We've been trying to contact him, his people, find out what's going on..." He grimaced at the commissioner. "From what we're getting back, Commish, I dunno, seems like he might be the real deal." 

"Right. No one say Wayne's name to the press. Nothing gets out until we know for sure what we're dealing with." 

"Yessir," he said, and veered off. Gordon could already see the lights ahead, hear the frenzied rabble of the paparazzi. Middle of the night, and all the vultures had already showed up. Then again, it was the Batman. That was enough to get even the mayor out of bed. 

Gordon jogged up, noticed an ambulance with an officer being treated in the back. The entire alleyway was cordoned off, the bat splayed across the ground, the jagged cape as black as blood at midnight. There was one vivid point of contrast, a point of vulnerability. His mask was off, his face naked and exposed. Postmortem bruising mottled his face, but the cheekbones and jawline were unmistakable. Even shrouded in a batsuit, even in the middle of an anonymous alleyway, Bruce Wayne drew attention to himself. Montoya came up to meet him.

"What happened there?" Gordon said, gesturing back at the ambulance. 

"Oh," she said. "That was Kaczynski. He was the first to the body, tried to take the mask off. It was booby-trapped, some sort of shock device. The EMTs say he ought to be fine." 

"Damn it," Gordon said. "How long's he been on the force? He should know better." 

"Yeah." Montoya shrugged. "Well, he got the mask off. And at least everyone's keeping their distance now." She gestured down at the corpse. "My god, Jim, what are we going to do?" 

Gordon ran his hand down his face, feeling the scruff of his beard. "We process this, just like any other dead body. Batman - Batman's been dead before, remember. And this might not even be ..." He slipped his fingers beneath his glasses, pressing them against the corners of his eyes. "God damn it, Bruce." 

"Sir?" Montoya said. 

He looked up at her. "You ever meet Bruce Wayne in person?" 

"Nah," she said, then corrected herself. "Once. I was responding to a robbery at one of those gala things he was holding. Batman handled it, we got there in time to clean up the aftermath. Wayne said a couple of words to me, maybe. Seemed nice enough." She smiled a little. "Gotham's most eligible bachelor, sure, I could see that." 

"Mm." Gordon looked down at the corpse. "I spoke with him a couple of times during investigations. He was a glib guy, deliberately superficial. The way he acted, he wanted everyone to think less of him than he really was." Now that he was dead, Wayne's face bore a quiet serenity that Gordon had never seen on it in life. "I don't think he liked himself very much." 

"Um." Montoya shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. "You figure that's why he did the whole bat-thing?" 

"Jesus," Gordon sighed. "Seeing your parents get killed in front of you. What'll that do to a kid. Maybe it's a clone," he said abruptly. "Maybe it's a Batman from some other dimension. Maybe it's some wannabe who got plastic surgery." He shrugged helplessly. "Maybe, maybe..."

"Yeah," Montoya said. "But we still haven't heard back from Bruce Wayne's people, and so far no one can tell us where -" 

"Commissioner!" An officer came running up. "We just got word. They got in touch with Wayne's butler. Apparently, the guy went on an, ah, impromptu cruise to the Bahamas yesterday. Swears he just got to talk to Wayne via satellite phone. Says the guy's just fine." 

Gordon let out a breath. "So you're telling us," Montoya said, "that this guy is ... a lookalike? And Bruce Wayne so happens to be conveniently out of the country, incommunicado, but he can phone in at a moment's notice to tell us that he's totally fine?" 

The officer shrugged. "Hey, just relaying what they told me, Montoya." He glanced up at Gordon. "Commish? What do you want us to do now?" 

Gordon ran a hand across his forehead. "All right," he said. "If they say Wayne's all right. We ID the body then, get fingerprints, dental records, figure out just who -"

His words were cut off by a sudden shrill beep, and all eyes turned to Batman's body, a light on the utility belt going off. "Get down!" Gordon yelled. "Everyone, get away from the -"

There was a burst like a road flare, bright phosphor, and something in the batsuit went alight, burning white hot and filling the alleyway with the smell of acrid rubber and roasting pork. Gordon shielded his eyes. The fire shone like a star, intense and self-contained, sinking into the body and burning itself out. Day faded back into night. Gordon looked up.

"Jesus," Montoya said.

The body was a shadow, a scorch mark, blackened bones crumbling inside a melted batsuit. Gordon put his hand to his nose and fought the urge to throw up. From behind him he could hear other failing in their attempt. "A remote detonator," he muttered. His eyes stung. Bruce Wayne was gone. Batman was gone. There was nothing there. 

Jim Gordon stood in the dingy darkness of three in the morning, watching the bomb squad transport the remains of the body. Somewhere in Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne's butler was busy making calls, making arrangements. High above the Earth in a gleaming metal satellite, gods might have been convening over the fate of one of their own. And Bruce Wayne himself - well, he might have been woken aboard a cruise ship, chuckling at the urgency of the GCPD as he let the waves sooth him back to sleep. Or he might have died alone in an alleyway, leaving behind an intricate set of measures to erase his double existence from the face of the Earth. 

Gordon looked up at the sky devoid of stars, their light choked out by the endless lucent wakefulness of Gotham City. He looked up at the edges of the rooftops, at the gargoyles leering down at him, at the dark shapes that could have been crouching figures watching over the scene. "You didn't need to do that," he said to the air. "You could have let it lie. We would have buried him. We would have honored him. We would've put him to rest." 

Gotham City looked back down upon him, and made no reply.


End file.
